TEHRAN - The protests recorded in Iran at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 have primarily been interpreted as the expression of accumulated economic and social tensions. This reading, focused on domestic factors, identifies real elements, such as persistent inflationary pressure. In many analyses, these factors appear sufficient to explain both the scale of the mobilizations and the subsequent response by the authorities.

The problem with this interpretation is not what it asserts but what it leaves out. In the case of Iran, isolating internal dynamics from the strategic environment in which they unfold introduces a significant analytical distortion. For decades, the country has operated under a regime of sanctions, recurring military threats, and sustained confrontation with regional and extraregional powers. In this context, domestic and external spheres rarely function independently. Treating the protests as a strictly domestic phenomenon may be descriptively accurate but is unlikely to be fully explanatory.

A recent analysis by Professor John Mearsheimer, an international relations theorist, proposes precisely this broader framework. From this perspective, the protests cannot be understood without reference to the structural pressure environment in which they occurred. Realism does not deny the existence of legitimate demands; rather, it situates them within a broader logic of competition among states, where internal spaces are inevitably shaped by prolonged strategic rivalries.

Realism, anarchy, and the calculation of survival

The starting point of realism is well known. The international system lacks a central authority capable of guaranteeing the security of states. In this anarchic environment, survival becomes the primary objective, and power, military, economy, and technology are the principal means to achieve it. The intentions of other actors can never be assumed, and cooperation, while possible, is always contingent and reversible.

Within this framework, Iran appears less as an ideological anomaly and more as an actor responding to recognizable structural incentives. Its regional policy, investment in asymmetric military capabilities, and insistence on preserving strategic options reflect a logic of deterrence in a perceived hostile environment. The United States, Israel, and certain regional actors, for their part, interpret these same policies as a direct threat to their strategic position in the region.

The result is a deeply asymmetric relationship. Economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and forms of indirect confrontation are not moral responses to an allegedly illegitimate regime but instruments of power politics designed to alter the incentive structure of the Iranian state. Realism does not offer a normative judgment on this dynamic; it merely describes it as a predictable consequence of the existing distribution of power.

Economic pressure and social fragility

The first clear link between the protests and the international environment is economic. Sanctions have had a profound and sustained impact on Iran’s economy, restricting access to markets, foreign exchange, and technology. While domestic problems remain relevant, external pressure acts as a multiplier of preexisting tensions.

From a realist perspective, this effect is not accidental. Sanctions are part of a prolonged strategy designed to alter the balance of incentives facing the Iranian state, with predictable secondary effects on internal stability. Debate about their long-term effectiveness continues, but their distributive impact is difficult to deny. The most vulnerable segments of the population tend to bear a disproportionate share of the cost, creating a social environment more prone to mobilization.

Recognizing this link requires focusing on the interplay between internal and external factors, where domestic economic variables are deeply conditioned by decisions made abroad. In this sense, the protests do not arise in a vacuum and cannot be analyzed as if they do.

Protest, technology, and the transnational dimension

The second relevant element of a realist analysis concerns the technological and communication environment in which the protests unfolded. In recent years, digital tools have assumed a central role in the organization, visibility, and coordination of social mobilizations. In contexts of high geopolitical polarization, these tools inevitably introduce a transnational dimension.

During the protests, intensive use of external technological infrastructures, particularly in connectivity, allowed actors to bypass restrictions and amplify information flows. From a realist reading, these infrastructures are not neutral: they form part of the contemporary strategic environment and affect the balance between state control and social mobilization capacity.

This suggests that, in a context of prolonged strategic rivalry, internal crises tend to acquire significance that transcends purely domestic considerations. Technology acts as a force multiplier, capable of transforming localized tensions into nationally significant episodes.

Narratives, perception, and legitimacy

A third important component is the international media treatment of events. In much of the Western press, coverage tended to privilege interpretive frameworks focused almost exclusively on state responses, with limited attention to external structural factors. This selection does not necessarily reflect deliberate coordination but a combination of informational biases, dependence on official sources, and established normative frameworks.

The effect, however, is significant. By presenting the crisis as a binary confrontation between a state and a “homogeneous civil society”, the space for more complex analyses is reduced, reinforcing the legitimacy of additional pressure policies. From an Iranian perspective, this dynamic contributes to the perception that the conflict is not confined to domestic affairs but is part of a broader contest over legitimacy and sovereignty.

State response and the logic of containment

Against this backdrop, Iran’s state response can be interpreted as a classic exercise in containment. Faced with a situation perceived as potentially destabilizing, the authorities prioritized reestablishing control over information flows and limiting centers of violence. From a realist perspective, this behavior is consistent with the actions of states confronting scenarios of accumulated pressure.

By reducing the capacity for coordination and escalation, the state managed to prevent a prolonged crisis. Without a sustained destabilization dynamic, the episode lost part of its external strategic relevance. The option of direct intervention, always costly and uncertain, ceased to be viable in the short term.

This outcome illustrates one of realism’s central insights: states, even under intense pressure, often demonstrate a resilience greater than their adversaries anticipate. Stability, in this sense, does not imply an absence of tensions but the ability to manage them within certain limits.

Rethinking the 2025 confrontation

Analysis of the protests is inevitably linked to the open military confrontation of June 2025, an episode that marked a turning point in regional deterrence dynamics. Much of the Western discourse presented the confrontation as conclusive proof of U.S. and Israeli military superiority, emphasizing force projection and strikes against Iranian strategic infrastructure.

A more measured and structural reading suggests a less categorical assessment. Rather than a decisive outcome, the conflict highlighted the limits of conventional military power against a state that has built its strategy precisely around resilience, dispersion of capabilities, and long-term risk management. Far from inducing strategic collapse, the confrontation confirmed that Iran retains significant operational margins even under direct pressure.

From this perspective, Iran’s capacity to absorb the initial impact, maintain institutional cohesion, and respond in a calibrated manner altered the escalation calculations of all involved parties. The conflict demonstrated that, while technological asymmetry persists, the potential costs of prolonged escalation are high enough to reinforce a mutual containment logic. Deterrence, rather than disappearing, was reconfigured.

In this context, claims of a definitive neutralization of Iran’s strategic capabilities are difficult to sustain. Beyond official statements, the lack of structural changes in the regional balance and the continuity of pressure policies suggest that core strategic objectives remain unresolved. If the goal had been to conclusively eliminate Iran’s strategic options, the subsequent reliance on indirect instruments and sustained political pressure would be difficult to explain.

From a realist standpoint, one of the most relevant consequences of the confrontation was the reaffirmation of Iran’s strategic rationality. Faced with incentives favoring escalation, Tehran chose to limit the conflict and avoid dynamics that would have exponentially increased regional risks. This choice does not reflect weakness but a prudent assessment of systemic costs associated with open war.
Ultimately, the 2025 confrontation did not resolve the central dispute but reinforced an uncomfortable conclusion for many external observers: Iran remains an actor capable of resisting, adapting, and calculating strategically under extreme pressure. Any analysis of subsequent events, including domestic protests, cannot be separated from this demonstration of state resilience.

Conclusion

From this perspective, recent protests in Iran cannot be understood solely as a domestic phenomenon. They are the result of a complex interaction between internal tensions and a strategic environment shaped by decades of pressure and rivalry. Realism offers no comfort or normative solutions. It does not seek to absolve or condemn the actors involved.

Its contribution is narrower but essential: to remind that, in an international system without guarantees, states interpret internal events in light of perceived external threats and act accordingly. As long as these structural dynamics remain unresolved, internal tensions in Iran—as in other states subjected to prolonged pressure—will continue to interact with external rivalries in ways that defy simplified readings and demand broader analytical frameworks.